


Cake Ingredients

by Cinomari



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Baking, Dad Egbert is a Good Dad, Family Bonding, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27778210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinomari/pseuds/Cinomari
Summary: Dave Strider had finally managed to save up enough dough to visit his best bro's house in Washington. He could only have imagined what it was like to be in a regular ass house with a regular ass dad who baked cakes at five in the morning, with a pantry full of food and more praise than he really knew what to do with.Drabble.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 36





	Cake Ingredients

It had been the best week of his goddamn life. He’d saved money for two years, working odd jobs and doing some pretty bad photography for kid’s social media, when finally he had enough cash to buy a round trip ticket to Washington for spring break.The week had flown by, fully consisting of video games, watching terrible movies, and pestering the girls with the knowledge that they were together and the girls were not. 

The night before he was set to go home, Dave couldn’t sleep. He laid awake on John’s floor, staring up at the glow in the dark sticker stars he must have placed up there at some point. After envisioning one too many ways his dad could have helped him up there, getting lost in a particularly hilarious scene where both of them fell off a ladder, Dave sat up. 

It was the last night he was here, he might as well pack up some snacks for the ride home, at least. It wasn’t stealing, he insisted to himself as he padded his sock feet downstairs, not if it was stuff that Mr. Egbert would have let him have anyway. He'd probably get annoyed if he bothered to ask every time a guy wanted a pringle chip, right? He was doing him charity by just taking the damn shit. 

Dave was pretty sure he was pulling this whole heist off without a hitch. He’d carefully opened up the pantry, making no sound at all. He laid his backpack open on the ground in front of him, stuffing it full of chip bags and snack cakes. Once he found the beef jerky, a protein that didn’t need to be kept cold, it was basically christmas. “Fuck yeah,” He muttered, dumping handfuls of it into his bag. 

The top part of the pantry was completely stocked with cake mixes. Whenever John talked about his dad, he was always baking something, but Dave thought it was an exaggeration. Didn’t seem like it- there were at least 20 cake mixes at the very top, out of his reach, one or two brownie boxes, and even more ingredients to make stuff from scratch. Seemed a little excessive, but hey, his fridge was filled with swords. Who was he to judge. 

Once he’d finished pilfering his best friend’s food supplies, Dave zipped up his backpack like nothing happened. He swung it onto his back and turned to walk out, his chest puffed out with pride as he’d managed to get away. As he stepped out into the kitchen, there was a sound of shattering glass behind him. 

It’s like the world went in slow motion. He turned, his backpack had caught on a glass on the counter and toppled it. His heart started racing. Dave set his bag down and scrambled to pick up all the glass pieces, hopefully before Mr. Egbert would see, erase the evidence, he was never here.

Only a few moments later, a shadow loomed in the doorway. Dave glanced up, glass in his hands, “Oh, ah, hey Mr. E. This glass off’ed himself, sacrificed for the main cause, you know, all that shit. I’m just the poor sap cleanin’ up the aftermath, I ain’t paid enough for this.” He stood up and threw the glass into the trash, trying to casually scoot by the man. 

“Quite alright,” Mr. Egbert answered, leaning down to pick up the last shard of glass Dave had missed, “No harm done. Why do you have your backpack on?” 

“Oh this ol’ thing?” Dave tried to laugh it off, but could feel his face getting hot. He hated it when this happened, it was so much easier to be stoic on the internet, “It looked. Lonely. Had to take him for a walk, you know, get the steps in, keep up that exercise. Weight training.” 

The man raised an eyebrow, but looked towards the open pantry door. “I see. Well. I was up any way, planning to make you and John a cake for the morning, something to eat on the way to the airport. Would you like to join me?” 

“I… I mean, sure, if I can.” Dave stepped outside of the kitchen, “One sec.” He stashed his backpack with the food against the wall of the living room, where he could still see it from the kitchen, then returned. “I never really knew how to make stuff like that. Gonna have to teach me all of it.” 

“It’s quite simple. If you don’t want to do it from scratch, we can do it with the box. Might be a bit easier for five in the morning, but whichever you prefer.” 

“Oh. Let’s, ah, let’s say someone doesn’t have boxed cake mix. Just for theory sake, I could totally score some sweet betty crocker if I wanted to. But let’s say I didn’t. What would I need?” He rambled on, hopping himself up on the counter. 

Mr. Egbert looked at him on the counter, almost pained, but decided to let it go. “Well. In the unlikely circumstance that that occurs, you’ll need to decide what kind of cake you want. John says you like apples, correct? Would you like to make an apple cake?” 

“Hell yes,” He answered, then immediately covered his mouth with his hands, “Sorry. Heck. Heck yes I would like an apple cake. I didn’t know cakes came in apple.” 

The man started getting things out of the cabinet, “They do, you can flavor essentially anything. Keep quiet now, John doesn’t like to be woken up by baking. You’ll need flour, baking powder, sugar and salt for the dry stuff. They’re in the cabinet you’re blocking, care to get them for me?” 

Dave took the supplies out, setting them on the other side of the counter. “Cool, dry stuff. And you can get that stuff kinda cheap, right? It ain’t too expensive?” 

“It isn’t too expensive,” He answered, taking out more stuff- vanilla extract, some apples, two eggs, butter- “If you weren’t doing apple flavored, you wouldn’t need all of this either, and once you buy the vanilla and the flour it lasts for a long time. Crack those eggs into this bowl.” 

Dave took it and did so, looking up at the man once he was done, waiting for a reaction. When it didn’t come immediately, he tilted the bowl towards him a little bit, raising his eyebrows. 

“Very good,” Mr. Egbert said, “Toss the eggshells, then we’ll sift in the flour.” Dave hated how the praise made him feel. He didn’t need validation from some guy for doing something so easy, but he tossed the eggshells and couldn’t quite fight the little smile on his face. He shook his head when Dad wasn’t looking, bringing his face back to neutral. 

They worked that way for a while, Mr. Egbert instructing Dave on the easier and finer points of making the cake, Dave basking in his praise every time he offered it. By the time the cake was in the oven, Dave was gnawing on the core of one of the apples, having saved it from being thrown away. 

“Dave, if you’re hungry you can just have another apple. We bought several when we knew you were coming, you don’t have to…” He trailed off his sentence, looking for a tactful way of saying it, “You can throw the core away.” 

He looked down at the apple core, then threw it in the trash. “Yeah, no, I know. I wasn’t. It wasn’t cause I was hungry, just don’t like to waste sh-stuff, you know? I’m one of those hippy dippy types. Usin’ every part of the bison and what not.” 

“Right. Well, I believe that bison has been thoroughly used,” He opened the oven and put the cake on the rack, “It’ll be done in about 50 minutes. It may be a bit chunkier than what you’re expecting of a cake, but if you like apple flavor I believe you’ll enjoy it. Maybe we should let it cool, then you and John can decorate it in the morning?” 

Dave nodded, slipping off the counter, “Yeah. Yeah, that all sounds cool. I never got to bake a cake before, we don’t really do that.” 

“I can tell,” Mr. Egbert answered, “... Listen. I’m going to leave you my phone number. Should you need assistance, you can call me. We can have you on the next flight out. I don’t pretend to know all of the circumstances of your father, but I can at least slightly infer that-” 

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Dave interrupted, standing up straighter, “Several things wrong with that, pump the breaks there Mr. E. Not my father, my Bro, and he’s fucking awesome. I ain’t even sorry I cussed, he’s just that cool. He’ll be stoked that I can bake him a cake, he’ll be really happy about it, I can already tell you.” 

“Fine, your brother, I don’t know all of the circumstances but I can tell you that according to the child milestones-” 

“I go off the rails, man, no child milestones can hold up to what Dave “the man” Strider is capable of. I break the child system because I’m way too cool for all of that.” He puffed out his chest, staring up at the man defiantly, though his hands were shaking. 

“And yet, the scars running across your face and arms show differently!” His voice got a bit louder to avoid being spoken over, but to Dave it just sounded like he was shouting. Mr. Egbert bit his lip as he watched Dave shrink back, a flash of fear across his face.

“Yeah?” Dave asked, “Different how? That I’m tough and cool and badass? That’s what they show off. I know. Can’t get rid of em, so unless you want to give me a whole victim complex about em, I’d suggest you lay the fuck off about my scars.” 

“... I didn’t intend for… I apologize. That was rude of me. I’m sorry, Dave,” Mr. Egbert sighed, “I’m sorry. I just worry for you. You’re a very charming young man.” 

An adult was apologizing to him. Admitting he’d done something wrong. Praising him for something else. His heart was pounding in his chest, but he tried to ignore it. “Yeah. Well. It was rude. I… I forgive you, though. If it matters.” 

“It does matter. How about you go head upstairs and try to sleep a bit more? Don’t forget your backpack.” He smiled at him, nodding to the bag in the other room, “I’ll see what else we can fit in your other bags, once you’re ready to finish up packing to go.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He’d been home for about three days. He’d managed to ration out the food he’d been given, hiding it in the top of his closet so Bro couldn’t find it. The words Mr. Egbert said kept echoing through his head- that it wasn’t normal, his scars weren’t the sign of him being some badass protégé, and when called out he just. Apologized. Like that wasn’t the absolute most buck wild thing he could have done.

Dave had tried to make the cake for Bro, real casual, he just left it on the counter for him to find and praise him. Best fuckin’ little bro ever, making a cake and icing it. It was a little lumpy on one side, but Dave was sure Bro would like it. 

It sat out for three days before Bro threw it away, having never even taken a bite of it. 

He’d managed to go three days with perfectly good cake just rotting on the counter, not wanting to eat any of it before Bro could, he didn’t want to make it any less perfect for him. 

Dave reached up into his closet and felt around in his bag, trying to grab a stick of beef jerky. He felt a paper in the bag he hadn’t felt before. He pulled it out, his eyebrows crinkled, maybe a receipt? Something he had to repay to John’s Dad? If that was it, he could fucking forget about it, fair is fair and- 

He turned it over in his hand, looking at a slightly crumpled, handwritten note.

“Dave. 

If you’re reading this, it means you used the cake mix from your bag. I am so proud of the young man you’ve become- while I admit I have not known you long, I do know you are extraordinary. You always have a home with us, should you need it.” 

He stared at the note and set it on his turntables, looking around his room. What a stupid, irresponsible thing to say. He couldn’t help but envision it, fantasize about it, consider what it would be like to live in a house in the suburbs, white picket fence and a dad with a 9-5. Enough food in the kitchen. No fucking puppets. 

He looked for hours for somewhere to hide the note where he knew Bro could never find it, but Bro knew every inch of the apartment. He was in the vents. He was in his room. He could be under the bed, in the closet, hiding in the ceiling tiles, anywhere. 

Dave shoved the note in his pocket. He rationalized it, as he does everything- it was safer in his pocket where Bro couldn’t find it, not because he wanted to be able to read it whenever. Not because he could touch it when he felt anxious. Simply utility.

**Author's Note:**

> Come vibe I'm @Cinomari_ on twitter!


End file.
